Dispatches from the Desk #4: Skulking Through the City

Not as much progress as I had hoped has been made this week. Blame it Mister Wicked's IBS, which is acting up and leading to somewhat interrupted sleep, with polite, but sharp, "Arfs" from the bottom of the stairs demanding hasty trips to the yard in the wee sma' hours. I don't know what he ate that he shouldn't have, and surely dogs don't get excess-of-relatives-at-Christmas stress. Anyway, broken sleep and the need to cook a lot of things is interfering with progress.

Most of the central characters are still skulking in hiding in the city. I don't like cities much. Perhaps that's why it's going slower. I want to get back to the hills and the open sky. G., however, has abandoned the group, and is setting off in pursuit of his friend A., who is currently in a very bad state indeed and is being swept off with Z. to take over a small war in the west, which Z. feels is not being well conducted in her absence. G. is afoot and — why oh why have I inflicted a sprained ankle on him? He gave his horses, well, technically they were A.'s horses, away to D. He's going to have to steal one. That's the only solution. Well, he could buy one, he has money, but there's a bit of racial profiling going on as officialdom looks for a spy, and he unfortunately fits the profile exactly, being the spy they're looking for, except that he isn't — a spy, that is. He was merely an innocent tagger-along. That's his story, anyway, and he's sticking to it.

Onwards! Except that today is "Make the Christmas Stollen" day.